|
In this week's edition...
- This week, last week - did you miss last week's newsletter?
- Naace and Microsoft sign framework agreement: Naace and Microsoft are proud to announce that they have signed a framework agreement which enables learners to purchase Microsoft software at Academic prices - up to 80% lower than normal pricing.
- 21st June 2007: a long day and a special one for Naace: Summer solstice marks launch of a new Naace website.
- ICT Mark Update: Steve Cutting provides an weekly update on the ICT Mark
- Naace Sponsoring Partners' Update Day: 10th July 2007 - a date for sponsoring partners' diaries
- Pull CPD Project - first provisional output for comment.Your chance to view the first iteration of the work produced by the Pull CPD Project knowledge building teams.
- Naace "Making Information Work" Conference:presentations now available online from Naace website.
- What's on: Items for your diary:
'e-maginative learners' National Conference - 4th & 5th July 2007 - Stoke-on-Trent Moat House
- TechNews - latest edition now available online
- News in brief
- IBM announce breakthrough self-assembling nanotechnology: Manufacturing process imitates methods used by nature
- Sponsor announcements: 3Com and Capita.ict, Kowari (formerly Simica) and Adobe
- And finally...Isn't technology wonderful....?
------------------------------------------------------------
This week, last week - did you miss last week's newsletter?
We trust that you will have received today's newsletter safely. Last week's
edition encountered further problems in its distribution, and although it was
available on the Naace website, the email version appears to have disappeared
somewhere in the ether. Just to remind you that the weekly newsletter is
always (hopefully) available in the newsletter section of the website, from
whence it can be downloaded or read online. If you did not manage to access
last week's edition, this is what you missed:
- Learning Platforms Think Tank, Friday 20th April 07: 'Headlines' output from Learning Platforms Think Tank
- Mamelodi Trust - Update and thanks from the Trustees: A message from Steve Bacon, on behalf of the Trustees of the Mamelodi Trust.
- Secondary Community Questionnaire: Results so far... Margaret Derrington, Chair of SWG, comments on the Secondary Community Questionnaire.
- What's on: Items for your diary:
The 3rd Annual Education Conference Education 2007 -EXCELLENCE FOR ALL 24th May 2007, QEII Conference Centre, Westminster, London
Learn 2.0 Conference: September 14th-16th 2007 - Shanghai, China.
- Explore a forest of blogs: Chris Smith's "Forest of Theme Blogs"
- April Issue of Countdown out now: The new issue of Countdown, the KS3 ICT onscreen test newsletter, was sent to schools this week.
- Diploma in IT website now live: e-skills UK launch new Diploma website.
- Teachers TV - new look for website: Teachers TV website undergoes new branding.
- MSc aimed at teachers and learning technologists: MSc course in Multimedia and e-Learning at the University of Huddersfield
- News in brief: Stories you may have missed.
- Sponsor announcements: Logotron
- And finally...: Isn't technology wonderful....sometimes?
You can access it at:
http://www.naace.org/resourceView.asp?menuItemId=14&resourceId=1662 (it will
be necessary to log in using your user id and password.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Naace and Microsoft sign framework agreement
Naace and Microsoft are proud to announce that they have signed a framework
agreement which enables learners to purchase Microsoft software at Academic
prices - up to 80% lower than normal pricing.
"At Naace we believe this agreement brings tremendous value to members,"
said Mary Barker, General Secretary of Naace. "Learners can now buy software
at low prices which means that as well as saving them money, we are supporting
key government objectives including home access, digital divide and parental
engagement."
One of the first organisations to take advantage of this new agreement is
Naace sponsoring partner Software4Learners, who will deliver a program for
learners similar to one already run successfully in Ireland.
Under the Irish scheme learners are able to purchase Microsoft software
online at heavily marked-down prices and their school also benefits, receiving
a discount off future licensing costs. The scheme was launched in Ireland due
to demand from learners who wished to replicate their school desktop at home,
but had no way to do so. Now pupils and schools are provided with a
hassle-free service that allows both to benefit from top quality academic
software.
Dualta Moore, Managing Director of Software4Learners commented, "We are very
happy to have the chance to work with Naace to deliver great-value software
to learners. The Software4Learners scheme has been a big success in Ireland
and we believe it holds a lot of potential for the UK."
Through Naace and Software4Learners, UK learners will now enjoy the same
opportunity to buy cut price Microsoft software, and those schools who are
Naace members are able to receive the additional benefits of discounted future
licensing costs.
Microsoft's UK Education Director, Steve Beswick, pointed out how the scheme
represented significant savings for those involved, and also worked towards
improving IT accessibility. "This scheme can help eliminate the divide that
emerges between those that have access to superior IT resources and those that
don't. It is important that all learners have access to the software they
need, in order to support their learning experience."
The scheme will launch in June 2007 through Software4Learners, and more
information will be available then. In the mean time you can visit the Irish
Software4Learners site at http://software4students.co.uk/index.htm to find out
more.
------------------------------------------------------------
21st June 2007: a long day and a special one for Naace
June 21st 2007 - the longest day of the year - and proposed launch date for
the new Naace website. Long days will be nothing new to the team who have been
involved in the design, creation and population of the new, content management
system-based website. Much work has already been done, much is being done, and
there is much yet to do. Even at launch date, however, the website will not be
a finished product - in one sense it will never be the completed article,
because it is intended that its content will continue to grow as it is fed by
contributions from all facets of the Association's membership.
The technical element of the new website is being undertaken by Phil and
Damian Driscoll of Dial Solutions, whilst the design and management of the
website is in the capable hands of Beverley Parker and Steve Daley-Yates, at
Matlock Bath based Xited. Working with a team representing the elected bodies
of the association and the core team at Naace HQ, Phil, Beverley and Steve are
currently overseeing the migration of materials from the current website to
the new version.
This week your Editor has been peeping under the wraps of the new website to
get a preview of what we can expect in June, and can report that the visual
appearance is clear and colourful. There are familiar elements and new
features, and over the next few weeks we will be exploring these in more
detail.
What is very clear from a first exploration is that the framework and design
will allow and facilitate the direct publishing of quality content by a much
wider range of contributors than is currently possible. The sharing of best
practice, the exchange of ideas and viewpoints, advice and resources,
opportunities for professional development can all be well-served by the new
website, provided that members are prepared to be part of its growth. You may
have specific expectations about the kind of content you would like to find on
the Naace website. You may have ideas on how members could co-operate to
provide content, or on what resources should be available for public access /
members only. Mary Barker, Beverley Parker and Phil Driscoll would welcome
your suggestions, and suggest that you may wish to use the current mailing
lists as a medium for the sharing of such ideas. ( We will carry a feature on
the new mailing list, yes - list, in a future edition of the newsletter.)
Next week we will look at the opportunities for the sharing of good practice,
as exemplified by the aptly named "Sharing Success" Primary e-magazine and
will feed back ideas and comments from the membership and the website
development team.
------------------------------------------------------------
ICT Mark Update
Steve Cutting writes:
We now have confirmed figures of 742 schools accredited with the ICT Mark
across England and Wales, to the end of April 2007. However, we need many
more.... The Price Waterhouse Coopers survey in 2004 identified 11% of schools
in the sample as being "e-enabled." If we are to reach this (not unreasonable)
figure, even three or four years on, we need to get over 2,000 schools with
the award! It is the Naace membership that can really help us towards this
goal... by engaging with schools, and getting those who you think are good to
see the ICT Mark as THE way of confirming their status.
All ICT Mark assessors will shortly receive an updated list of the schools in
their LAs who are engaging with the SRF, and the summary data will be
published here next week. However, as a brief taster, some observations so
far:
- There are lots of schools using the self-review framework, as a percentage,
probably around 25% of all schools
- More secondary schools than primary schools are using it
- Relatively few (as a percentage) have yet to receive the ICT Mark.
There is a great deal of variation in the figures, so we will be looking at
them to see how best to support LAs where schools have not engaged as well as
in other areas.
Some arguments for schools and colleagues about why they should go for the
ICT Mark:
The scheme was devised by a range of educational ICT organisations, including
Ofsted, QCA, TDA, Becta, and Naace, and so represents what all these
organisations think about what a school that is "good" at ICT looks like.
The assessment mechanism was similarly devised, and it was agreed that it
needed a half day visit by a qualified ICT Mark assessor to validate the
school's self review against the self-review framework. It would have been
considerably cheaper to devise a scheme where assessment was by submission of
a portfolio, rather than a visit. However, this was rejected in favour of the
more rigorous assessment we have now. Each assessor is quality assured by
having an assessment visit accompanied by a leading assessor, so we can be
sure of the quality of professional dialogue, including feedback and areas for
development that the assessor can give.
The result is a scheme that enables a school to move forward with ICT, to
quality standards agreed by all the key agencies, and with an assessment that
gives real value in terms of looking at a school's self review process. After
a successful assessment, the school could be assured that it was doing its
best for its pupils with ICT, and that their self review processes, if
accurate in ICT, were likely to be accurate in other areas too. The assessment
is not an end point, and the areas for development given by the assessor would
allow the school to move forward.
------------------------------------------------------------
Naace Sponsoring Partners' Update Day
The next update day for Naace Sponsoring Partners will be held on 10th July
2007 at the Quakers' Meeting House, 173 Euston Road, London, NE1 2BJ.
The programme is finalised and booking details were sent out Friday 27th
April 2007. For futher information please contact Mel Bowler, Naace Events
Manager melanie.bowler@naace.org
------------------------------------------------------------
Pull CPD Project - first provisional output for comment.
The Pull CPD Project knowledge building teams are working on:
- Collaborative and community learning
- Visual approaches to teaching and learning
- ICT as a subject
- Learning Platforms
Over the last two months the teams have been scoping these areas and
gathering information, resources and links that can help Naace members who
wish to undertake practical and pragmatic professional development in these
areas.
You can find the first (and provisional) iteration of their work by clicking
on:
- 'Future Learning' from the Naace website home page,
- ICT-in-Education Professional Knowledge Framework,
- click to expand,
- then the password is naace.
There is still much to do. Between now and the end of June the Teams are
tasked with producing and refining guidance as to what Naace members and
others might do with the various sources of help and information that have
been identified, to understand how to engage in professional development in
the area of interest, in a time-efficient way.
The Team Leaders would much appreciate feedback and comment from Naace
members interested in these issues, on:
- other useful information/resources/links, particularly where there are gaps.
- which information/resources/links members find useful and the use you make of them.
(Where to send comments is indicated on the password page.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Naace "Making Information Work" Conference:presentations now available online
Naace colleague Luke Lowis-Dennis has been in touch to inform members that the
MIS one-day conference "Making Information Work" held in Windsor last
Thursday, 26th April, was well received and that presentations can be
downloaded from the Naace website at:
http://www.naace.org/resource.asp?menuItemId=6
------------------------------------------------------------
What's on
'e-maginative learners' National Conference - 4th & 5th July 2007 -
Stoke-on-Trent Moat House
Naace member Stephen Holland writes:
"Building upon the highly enthusiastic responses to our previous three
events, the next 'e-maginative learners' national conference aims to provide
timely, inspirational and practical support for everyone involved in
transforming schools. The focus is upon how the effective use of appropriate
technology can best support learners, teachers and school improvement.
As ever, we seek to bring you inspirational speakers of high standing who
will not only inspire and help move your thinking forward, but will also
enable you to get to grips with the nuts and bolts of successful
implementation. Speakers and seminar leaders already booked for 2007 include:
· Professor Stephen Heppell (http://www.heppell.net);
· John Davitt (http://www.newtools.org);
· Steve Moss (Strategic Director - ICT, Partnership for Schools),
· Dr Baldev Singh (Head of Strategic ICT Development at Imagine
Education Ltd and recipient of 2004 National Teaching Award for Innovation in
Education);
· Professor Angela McFarlane (via video) (Professor of Education &
Director of Learning Technology at the University of Bristol).
The 2007 conference will make particular reference to:
· implementing really effective personalised learning;
· successfully addressing boys underachievement in English;
· improving learning outcomes through the effective use of mobile devices.
Our conferences are self-funding but not for profit.
More information and online booking is available at http://www.sgfl.org.uk/clc
Delegates may attend on one or both days. Please forward this message to
other colleagues (especially school-based) who you feel could benefit from
attending.
------------------------------------------------------------
TechNews - latest edition now available online
The April edition of Becta's TechNews is now available. TechNews is a free
technology news and analysis service aimed at those in the education sector
keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues.
TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news.
Each issue contains news and analysis related to the following main subject
areas:1. Networking and Wireless; 2. Multimedia; 3. Hardware; 4. Software and
Internet.
This edition contains, among lots of other things, a very interesting feature
on projectors, which includes information on the latest developments in
ultra-portable projection equipment, as well as the reason why Haringey has
gone 'orange'.
You can download the newsletter directly from the Becta website:
http://www.becta.org.uk/technews
------------------------------------------------------------
News in brief
Survey shows open source progress
Open source technology now has a firm foothold in the public sector,
according to a new survey.
http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/B6A23D8412409EC0802572CE005552DD?OpenDocument
Cambridge Assessment, the non-profit exam marking offshoot of Cambridge
University, has signed RM Plc to hook its freelance markers into a
computerised assessment tool.
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/cambridge_marking/
Throughout May 2007, Windows Live Hotmail is creating the first ever national
archive of emails in conjunction with the British Library.
The Email Britain book, recording a snapshot of British life by email, will
be permanently archived for generations to come.
http://www.newhotmail.co.uk/emailbritain/
Latest e-skills Bulletin looks into the world of IT Support Technicians
In this issue, find the usual collection of labour market data whilst the
focus page presents a more detailed look at the world of IT User Support
Technicians working in the ICT industry/UK businesses more generally.
The latest e-skills Bulletin (Q4 2006) is now available at
www.e-skills.com/bulletin.
------------------------------------------------------------
IBM announce breakthrough self-assembling nanotechnology
This week IBM announced the "first-ever application of a breakthrough
self-assembling nanotechnology to conventional chip manufacturing, borrowing a
process from nature to build the next generation computer chips."
In a press release from IBM we read that the IBM Airgap microprocessor was
"created by harnessing the natural forces that make patterns including
snowflakes and sea shells. The self-assembly technology is being used to
create a vacuum between the miles of on-chip wiring.
The natural pattern-creating process that forms seashells, snowflakes, and
enamel on teeth has been harnessed by IBM to form trillions of holes to create
insulating vacuums around the miles of nano-scale wires packed next to each
other inside each computer chip."
For more, visit http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070503/0247315.html
------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor announcements
Building Schools for the Future - on secure foundations: an initiative by 3Com
and Capita .ict
As you will have heard from Jim Knight at the recent Naace Annual Strategic
Conference, enabling the extension of schools' ICT environments is a priority
- but doing so safely and with a clear understanding of the implications for
security is also vitally important.
As a partnership with huge experience in building highly accessible and
cost-effective educational IT networks, Naace sponsoring partners 3Com and
Capita .ict are at the forefront of meeting this challenge.
In our initiative for Building Secure Schools for the Future, we are taking
the debate a stage further. We have developed an approach that considers:
How network security can keep pace with widening network perimeters, driven
by campus-wide wireless access, shared services and universal home access
How Schools' ICT networks can build-in new layers of safety for pupils and
staff, including Internet filtering and copyright protection
How seamless voice-and-data networks can deliver higher standards of on- site
security for schools and colleges, through roaming IP telephony and
integrated surveillance and recording.
The Network Computing Company of the Year, 3Com is pioneering new affordable,
standards-based convergence and security technologies that are designed to
meet Schools' needs for sustainable ICT infrastructures.
Working with Capita .ict, we have already been involved in transforming ICT
environments all over the country, including 40 schools in Northamptonshire,
and some of the first BSF projects in the Midlands and London.
Capita .ict is now offering a free site-survey to help you design a school
network that will work effectively and to support you in all your network
solutions. If you'd like to find out more about Building Secure Schools for
the Future and building networks of the future, Capita .ict would like to talk
to you.
Find out more about Building Secure Schools for the Future today by calling
Capita .ict on 01604 824900 or email enquiries@dotict.co.uk
------------------------------------------------------------
What's in a name - some important news from Simica or is that Kowari?
Nina Garforth writes:
It's 18 months since Simica started Kowari and lots and lots has happened
since then. Simica sold the first Kowari to a single primary school, then a
few more Kowari (or should that be Kowaris or Kowarii) to some more primary
schools. Hopefully a foundation (the collective noun) of Kowarii will find a
home within an LA in the not too distant future perhaps with the help of a
Becta approved supplier and that brings us to the problem. Turn up and
everybody asks who Simica is because they were expecting Kowari - well ask no
more because to keep things simple, the company has now undergone a
Kowarification process and is now to be known simply as Kowari, we sell single
Kowari, and occasionally Kowaris or foundations of Kowarii and that's the
problem - changing the name is easy but we're struggling with the plural
spelling and associated collective noun - suggestions on a postcard to the
usual email address which is now nina@kowari.co.uk
For those that are wondering....... Kowari is a learning platform for early
years and primary, it is also a small Australian marsupial, no prizes for
guessing which one we are.
---------------------------------------------------------
Adobe
From Naace sponsoring partner Adobe, Alex Moore shares the following news:
Adobe Creative Suite 3 eSeminars are now running each week:
Video Mondays:
http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/event.cgi?eventid=5073&country=uk
Acrobat Tuesdays:
http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/event.cgi?eventid=5094&country=uk
Web Wednesdays:
http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/event.cgi?eventid=5098&country=uk
Design Thursdays:
http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/event.cgi?eventid=5104&country=uk
Photo Fridays:
http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/event.cgi?eventid=5100&country=uk
------------------------------------------------------------
And finally...
One of the joys of dog-ownership is the pleasure of seeing a group of assorted
furry friends socialising. Socialisation classes are a recommended means of
equipping your dog with the necessary life-skills to deal with social
intercourse in the canine world. Barney, your editor's one-year old
labradoodle had his informal socialisation classes on The Leas, an area of
open grassland beside the coast in South Shields (the location of the 'finish'
of the Great North Run.) Classes of dogs meet informally for the daily round
of sniffing, chasing and being part of a pack. With seldom a snarl, border
terriers commune with border collies, Welsh spaniels cavort with Yorkshire
terriers, Italian Spinones stroll with Siberian Huskies, and labradors lollop
with labradoodles. Initially owners exchange dog-names, rather than identify
themselves, so on returning home your editor might report to his wife that
today we met, Bill and Ben, Koonai, Merlin and Midas, Skye and Melody on our
hour's walk along the cliff tops and back.
By now, readers may be wondering what these ramblings have to do with
technology, communications technology particularly. Well, it's all to do with
SNIF and social networking for dogs. Fed up with Flickr, need more than
MySpace, something better than Beebo? Why not try SNIF?
In the US of A ( hands on your head all those who said "where else?") a new
company - Social Networking in Fur (SNIF) are currently testing a device (a
"custom radio communications protocol" which will allow for social networking
between dogs, and perhaps more significantly, their owners. The device, worn
on the dog's collar, allows the exchange of information between it and
identical devices worn by other dogs. Now this is where the problem arises.
Although Barney often gazes intently at your editor's LCD monitor as he busies
himself with the newsletter, and has a particular fascination in Google Earth,
he is yet to show any signs of mastery of input device or interpretation of
data. It appears, therefore that it is up to the dog-owners to download the
daily harvest of info garnered from a trip around the local park, or a
ten-mile trek along a coastal path. It is at this point where one wonders
about the direction this technology is taking. Do I really want to know that
Diesel, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, likes Eukanuba twice a day and enjoys
playing with his Kong, or perhaps am I, hypothetically speaking of course,
more interested in whether his owner shares my interest in Blues music, real
ale and Indian food. Social networking for dogs? Dog as go-between? Why not do
away with the dog and just wear the device on a collar around your own neck.
Save on unnecessary and awkward conversation - just walk past someone and
download their details later. Just think of the possibilities and potential!
Ah well, it's off to The Leas later. We might meet Gracie, Zak, Stella and
Charlie - and will take particular note of any strange devices hanging on
their collars.
For more: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18628/
and http://www.sniflabs.com/
and for the alternative to the SNIF tag, you could always try Dogster.com . A
few moments of idleness earlier in the week led to
http://www.dogster.com/dogs/533451
Robin
Robin Sanderson
newsletter@naace.org
Naace
Advancing education through ICT
Copyright (c) 2006 Naace. This newsletter is copyright of Naace Trading Ltd, and is solely distributed to individual members, sponsoring partners and institutional members. In no circumstances should it be passed on or copied in whole or part to individuals, commercial enterprises, organisations or institutions that fall outside these categories. In the case of institutional members, the contact person may distribute this newsletter to employees working within the same institution.
Author: Robin Sanderson
|
